A consultant surgeon has been sentenced to four years in prison for defrauding two insurance companies through a bogus breast cancer claim.

Massoud, 52, from Ratoath in Co Meath, used a cancerous tissue sample from his mother-in-law to claim that his wife had breast cancer

His wife, Gehan, received a three-year suspended sentence for her part in what was described as a particularly mean and nasty offence

Judge Pat McCartan said Emad Massoud and his wife came up with a clever scheme of deceit simply to feed greed

There was no compelling financial reason for it, he said, they were well capable of providing for themselves and their family

Massouds used a cancerous tissue sample from Gehan Massoud's mother to claim that Mrs Massoud had breast cancer

then operated on his wife to leave her with a surgical scar on her left breast

DNA analysis of the sample showed it could not have come from Mrs Massoud but had a 99% chance of being from her mother

incredible failure of two well-educated peopl